


moondust (to bury my love)

by Eternal_Peace_is_Overrated



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Apocalypse (Umbrella Academy), Amnesia, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Boys In Love, David “Dave” Katz Lives, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Ghost Ben Hargreeves, Klaus Hargreeves Deserves Better, Klaus Hargreeves Needs A Hug, Klaus Hargreeves Needs Help, Klaus Hargreeves and David “Dave” Katz during Vietnam, Klaus Hargreeves-centric, M/M, No Apocalypse, No Incest, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Temporary Amnesia, Time Travel Fix-It, Veteran Klaus Hargreeves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:34:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27466528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eternal_Peace_is_Overrated/pseuds/Eternal_Peace_is_Overrated
Summary: “I’m sorry,” Dave says, and Klaus is about to open his mouth and ask what it is he thinks he has to be sorry for, he’s here and he’s alive and he’s beautiful-  “But have we met?”***Or; Klaus struggles, falls in love, time travels, almost dies a few times, gets his amnesiac boyfriend back, meets God and somehow, along the way, they all learn how to be a family (not necessarily in that order).
Relationships: Allison Hargreeves & Klaus Hargreeves, Ben Hargreeves & Klaus Hargreeves, Klaus Hargreeves & Everyone, Klaus Hargreeves & Luther Hargreeves, Klaus Hargreeves & Vanya Hargreeves, Klaus Hargreeves/David "Dave" Katz, Number Five | The Boy & Klaus Hargreeves
Comments: 14
Kudos: 168





	moondust (to bury my love)

**Author's Note:**

> Hello all!  
> Thank you for taking the time to read this, and I hope you enjoy!  
> Please leave a kudos or comment on your way out! I live for them 💜

“I’m sorry,” Dave says, and Klaus is about to open his mouth and ask what it is he thinks he has to be sorry for, he’s here and he’s alive and he’s _beautiful-_ “But have we met?” 

Klaus’s world shatters. 

***

Klaus is nineteen when he overdoses for the first time.

It was bad, or so he’s been told. He doesn’t remember much of it. All he knows is what Ben told him, and all the bits that came before. He remembers slumping over on the ground of a dark alleyway after being kicked out of someone’s house (he needed a bed, they needed a fuck, it worked out until it didn’t), with a syringe in his hand. He’d already swallowed down his pills with cheap whiskey he’d snagged out of a dumpster, and he remembers thinking that the cold brick at his back and the icy cement beneath his bare feet felt a lot like the unforgiving stone of the mausoleum. He remembers the ghost of a little girl with a broken neck screaming and sobbing, clutching a blood soaked teddy bear to her chest (she wouldn’t fucking _go away_ , no matter how much he drank or how many pills he took) and he remembers Ben begging him to put the needle down. 

Klaus remembers baring his teeth in a rough imitation of a smile and shoving it into the crook of his arm instead. He remembers Ben cursing colorfully to every god they didn’t believe in as Klaus depressed the plunger. He remembers how everything went hazy and floaty for a while, before finally going dark. 

He couldn’t hear the little girl anymore.

(He remembers, vaguely, in the way one remembers a dream, a black and white garden, and a different little girl on a bicycle with long hair and judgmental eyes but, much like a dream, the memory floated away until it was like it hadn’t ever existed at all). 

When he finally wakes up, he’s in the back of an ambulance, body aching and head pounding, and Ben is yelling unintelligibly at him (the look on his face is so frightened, so panicked, that Klaus thinks he doesn’t ever want to see it again) (he has always been so very _good_ at hurting his siblings). 

Klaus doesn’t get Ben to calm down until they’re alone in the hospital room, and Klaus is already halfway out the window. Ben explains that Klaus’s heart had stopped for a full six minutes, and the paramedics were certain that they wouldn’t be able to get him back (Klaus pictures a little girl on a bike and thinks that may never be true, for him). 

Klaus promises him that it won’t ever happen again.

(Klaus is a liar). 

***

When Klaus is nine, he and all six of his siblings sneak out to Griddy’s for the first time, Five clutching a twenty dollar bill their mother had given them with a wink before promptly settling into her charging station for the night. 

Even Luther had come, moaning and groaning about rules and consequences, but by the end of the night, all of them were laughing and clutching at their bellies, full of sugary pastries and bursting with happiness. 

The seven of them, alone in a twenty-four hour doughnut shop with no one but the pretty young waitress who calls herself Agnes, get to be _kids_ (it feels amazing, freeing, even if there’s a man with his insides on the outside screeching in the far corner. He’s easy to ignore, though; Klaus has Five on one side and Ben on the other, and he keeps accidentally kicking Allison’s shins underneath the table. He feels warmer than he thinks he ever has). 

Klaus can still remember that moment; the one where he looked around at the smiling faces of his siblings and actually felt like they were a _family_ , not just people who happened to live under the same roof. It became a near nightly tradition, and if Pogo noticed the seven rambunctious children sneaking down the fire escape every night, it seemed he never told. 

Agnes stopped charging them and let them eat all the doughnuts they wanted, and even sent a big box home with them sometimes (she had started doing it the first time one of them had come in with visible injuries from their latest mission, and she had made a habit of doing it every time it happened after). 

It was a tradition they kept on for four and a half years. 

And then Five left, and he never came back. 

One by one, Klaus’s siblings stopped showing up, until it was only Klaus, sitting alone at a table meant for seven. 

Eventually, he stopped going, too.

***

Klaus is ten when he first discovers the wonders of drugs. 

(He hates the prick of the needle but what comes after nearly makes him cry from relief). 

It’s after one of his special training sessions, when the pain from his broken fingers makes him want to sob and curl into a ball, when the shrieks and wails of the ghosts that followed him home hammer against his pounding skull like a hurricane (he doesn’t learn, he never learns- he’s not going to get the door open, but he has to _try_ ; if he doesn’t, he’ll be washed away and left to drown). 

Morphine, it turns out, is a _wonderful_ thing. 

The world has gone soft and dull around the edges and he can’t even _feel_ his fingers anymore, let alone the spikes being dug into his skull with each fading scream, but the most _amazing_ part of it all is that the ghosts are fading from sight, too (they’re still there, Klaus knows, but he can’t hear them anymore, and the ones he can see are nothing more than shapeless shadows that only exist in his peripherals). 

That was the first full, uninterrupted, genuinely _restful_ night of sleep he had gotten since his powers had manifested when he was four (heh, Four). 

Waking the next morning to discover that the morphine had run through his system already made his eyes prickle with unshed tears (or maybe that was the ear splitting wailing of the ghosts, angrier than ever that they had been ignored). 

Once the fog lifts from his mind, he tenses at the weight of another person at his side, at the feeling of fingers curled tightly in his shirt. Panic almost sets in, until his eyes focus enough that he’s able to recognize the poof of curly hair obscuring his vision. 

“You scared me,” Allison says when she notices Klaus blinking himself into awareness, voice uncharacteristically quiet for his normally boisterous sister.

Klaus winds his arms around her and hugs her close, tucking his face into her curls and trying his best to ignore the wailing ghosts surrounding the bed, inhaling the familiar scent of her cinnamon shampoo and letting it ground him. 

“I’m sorry,” Klaus says, eyes tearing up again against a particularly ear splitting screech of his name. “I’ll try my best to never scare you again.” 

(Klaus’s best, it turns out, isn’t very good at all). 

(Allison doesn’t pick up the phone anymore). 

***

Klaus is sixteen when he gets the tattoos.

He was high out of his mind, floating on a gentle cloud of painkillers and weed, and it really wasn’t hard to find someone to do them, despite being underage. 

After all, who else could say they got to tattoo the famous teenage Séance? It helped that Klaus had stolen his father's wallet, and that it contained a truly outrageous amount of cash. 

When Klaus sneaks back in later that day, Luther is waiting for him, perched on Klaus’s bed and reading a thick and terribly boring looking book (Klaus thinks it might be about the moon, or maybe space, but his hands are burning, prickling with pain, and he can’t stop laughing at what his power has done to him). 

Luther’s eyes go wide and horrified, but Klaus still just laughs and laughs and laughs, because if he doesn’t he might cry (his chest aches and he doesn’t know why, but he thinks it might have something to do with the unmitigated hatred in Luther’s eyes when he first sees the tattoos) (doesn’t he know that they represent the only part of Klaus that anyone ever cares about?) 

“I’m the Sèance, big guy. Don’t you get it?” Klaus holds up his hands, palms out, flashing his new _Hello_ and _Goodbye_ tattoos, giggling. 

Luther scrunches up his face in disgust, and that aching spot in Klaus’s chest _twists._

And then Number One is racing down the stairs and into their father’s study. 

Klaus spends three days in the mausoleum, after that

Late on that third night, after he had been dragged home and fed, he sneaks down the fire escape and makes his way to his nearest dealer. 

It’s the first time his resolve slips and he tries the harder stuff that he’d promised Ben he wouldn’t put in his body (Klaus makes a lot of empty promises). 

He doesn’t speak a word to Luther for three weeks, and his larger brother looks so guilt-ridden and sad that Klaus finally caves as they move into the fourth.

Ben stopped talking to him after two, when he had first caught Klaus with the syringe. 

Klaus had waved a hand ( _goodbye_ ) with a manic grin, and depressed the plunger. 

(They’re all so good at hurting one another). 

***

Ben dies when they’re seventeen. 

Two days later, Klaus packs his bags. 

He never looks back. 

***

Sometimes, when dad drags him kicking and screaming into the mausoleum, Klaus sees a soldier. 

He’s tall and has curly hair and a kind smile. His eyes are big and blue and sad whenever he’s looking at Klaus, like someone has just shoved a knife into his back and _twisted_ (Klaus’s chest _throbs_ whenever the soldier looks at him like that, like he’s someone worth being sad over). 

There’s a gaping, bloody hole in the center of his chest. 

He never speaks (he opens his mouth once or twice, before his face goes through a series of complicated emotions and he closes it again, like he wants to say something but whatever it is hurts), but there’s always that sweet smile on his face, and he does his best to keep the scarier ghosts away.

Sometimes it works, but most of the time it doesn’t. 

Klaus never sees the ghost outside of the mausoleum, and more days than not, he wishes he does. 

(The ghost's smile always makes Klaus feel warm and safe, protected in a way he doesn’t think he’s ever been. It makes him feel the same way he does when Five squeezes his hand after a particularly difficult night, or when Ben sits quietly in Klaus’s room with him to read, or when Vanya lets him listen to her play. He wishes he could always feel that way). 

***

When they’re twelve, something happens- Klaus isn’t entirely sure what he did, but their father is absolutely _furious_ over it and drags him mercilessly to the mausoleum, ignoring his son's tearful pleading. 

Two hours after he had first been locked in there, and one after he’d lost his voice, there’s a familiar _fwmph_ and a bright blue flash, before darkness consumes them once more. 

Klaus startles violently, letting his hands drop from his ears long enough to scrub at his tear and snot soaked face, trying to squint through the hoard of ghosts to see his visitor. 

He startles again when a warm hand touches his shoulder, letting out a frightened shriek, before there’s another hand on his cheek, fingers tapping incessantly at his temple. 

“Shut up,” Five hisses. “I didn’t come here to get my eardrums blown out by your screams.” 

“F-F-Five?” Klaus asks, voice wobbly and thick with tears. 

There’s a deep sigh and a quiet click before a sudden bright light illuminates the corner Klaus has tucked himself into. 

Five sets the flashlight down and frowns deeply at Klaus, hands shifting down Klaus’s arms to take his hands and peer at his wrecked fingertips. 

“You’re a mess,” Five states succinctly, and pulls a box of firetruck bandaids and a small packet of alcohol wipes out of the pocket of his uniform shorts. With hands far gentler than his words, Five meticulously begins to clean Klaus’s fingertips, tutting quietly when he sees the missing fingernail on Klaus’s right hand and taking extra special care of that one. Once all the blood and dirt is gone, Five expertly wraps the bandaids around each injured finger. “There,” he says with a satisfied smile. “All better.” 

Klaus blinks at his brother with wide, wet eyes, wrapping his arms around himself and tucking his trembling hands underneath his uniform jacket, trying to warm them against the chill.

“You’re here,” he says quietly, and Five scoffs like Klaus has said something stupid. 

“Of course I’m here.” There’s a pause, and then Five shifts closer, settling himself on the ground next to Klaus, the warm press of a body next to his own helping soothe Klaus’s frayed nerves. “So, this is what dad means by “special training”, huh?”

Klaus giggles through his tears. “I don’t even know what I did this time, Fivey.” 

Five doesn’t say anything, just presses closer, letting the silence grow, until finally he says, “Dad’s a little bitch.” 

That startles a laugh out of Klaus, the sound so out of place within the cold walls of the mausoleum that, for one blessed moment, even the ghosts fall silent in their shock. 

(Something in Klaus’s chest grows warmer). 

It doesn’t seem so loud, when they start screaming again. 

Klaus peers at Five, whose face is pinched in concern he’ll never voice. 

“Yeah,” Klaus agrees with a tiny smile. “He really is.”

They don’t speak for the rest of the night, the ghosts wailing too loudly for Klaus to focus on anything Five tries to say. 

Five’s warm and slightly sweaty hand grabs at his own, and Klaus squeezes his back. Neither of them let go until morning. 

From then on, Five keeps an ear out for any mention of Klaus’s “special training” and, barring any times where he physically can’t, makes sure to blink into the mausoleum with him once their father has left, bringing with him board games or a deck of cards to pass the night and, sometimes, his Walkman. 

(The first time Klaus is put back in the mausoleum after Five has gone missing, his hands glow a bright brilliant blue, and then decaying fingers are grabbing at him and he’s screaming, screaming, screaming. He isn’t sure what happens after that, is lost in a haze of terror and pain. The world loses color, goes black and white and dull, and then, finally, there’s nothing at all. Even the soldier hadn’t been able to keep them away, this time. Whatever happened, it must have been bad, though, because dad never puts him in there again). 

***

Klaus overdoses again (it’s the...fifth time, now? Sixth?) when he’s twenty-four, and this time he wakes to Diego sitting in a chair beside his bed, tossing a knife into the air over and over again.

“Don’t do that again,” Diego says, voice harsh. 

Klaus flinches and sinks back into the bed, stares dully up at the clean white ceiling. 

“Do what, dear brother?” He asks, and Diego snarls, stabs the knife into the arm of his chair. 

“Dammit, Klaus, you could’ve _died_!” 

Klaus blinks leisurely at him before tossing his head back and laughing. It’s not a nice sound, if the way Diego flinches like he’s been struck is any indication. 

Once he’s caught his breath, Klaus flashes the barest imitation of a grin and says, “Only if I’m lucky.” 

This time, when Diego leaves, he doesn’t come back. 

(Ben says that Diego broke his own knuckles hitting the brick wall in the alleyway behind the hospital. Jokes on him, though. Klaus is infinitely more broken than his brothers bones ever will be.) 

***

“They say you loved me?” 

Klaus is alone in the attic. Was alone. Whatever. He’s perched haphazardly in the windowsill, one leg propped up on the frame while the other hangs outside. Smoke from the cigarette dangling between his fingertips curls lazily around his mouth and tickles his lungs before being swept outside by the chilly autumn breeze. 

He turns to face Dave and offers up a rueful smile. 

“There’s nothing past tense about the way I feel about you, Dave.”

Dave stares at him, cheeks going rosy, and asks, “Did I love you?” 

_Did_ I. Past tense. Because how do you love someone you don’t even remember? 

_(There’s a spot in Klaus’s chest that goes warm and gooey like melted chocolate whenever Dave tells him he loves him, or the way he links his pinky through Klaus’s belt loop when they’re with their troop since they can’t hold hands, or cuddles up close at night and presses his cold nose into Klaus’s neck during those rare times they get to spend a night or two in a shitty motel. It’s the same place that beat-beat-beats the life through Klaus’s veins, and right now it’s icy and aching)_

“Yeah,” Klaus says hoarsely. “Yeah, you did. You told me you were gonna buy me a ring.”

Klaus tries not to be hurt when Dave flinches like he’s been hit. 

(He fails.) 

“You’re a guy,” Dave protests weakly, and Klaus stares blankly at him for a moment before he tosses his head back and laughs. 

It’s not a nice laugh. 

It’s cold, and it’s bitter and a little bit manic, and it makes Dave take half a step back like he’s afraid. 

(Klaus didn’t think his heart had any pieces left to break. He was wrong.)

“Oh,” Klaus says when he finally settles, wiping a fake tear from his eye. “Dave, honey, you’re _gay._ Of course I’m a guy.” (Dave flinches again when Klaus says “gay”) (that cold spot grows colder). 

“No, I-”

“We met in the Vietnam War.” 

Dave falls silent, staring at Klaus with wide eyes. 

“1968,” Klaus continues, ignoring the way the ache in his chest grows with each word. “In the A Shau Valley. It was a pointless, bloody war. Nothing but bodies and ghosts. But- there you were, strong and kind and way too beautiful for the ugliness of it all. I fell for you right then and there, and I haven’t stopped falling since.” 

( _“It’s not that simple,”_ he wants to say. _“You were the only reason I stayed. You were my rock, my light, my home, you were everything. I followed you all the way to the front lines without even having to think about it,”_ he wants to scream. _“I stayed fifty years in the past, in the middle of an active war zone, trying to fight ghosts and withdrawal on top of the Vietnamese soldiers and it was absolute hell, but you made it worth it.”_ He wants to say it, sob it, scream it, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t think he can share that much of his heart with someone who can’t even look him in the eye without flinching). 

“We-”Dave pauses, clears his throat. “We fell in love in the middle of a war?” 

Klaus laughs again, otherwise he might cry (it wouldn’t be the first time. Dave used to hold him on those nights, when his laughter turned into sobs). “Yeah,” he says with a wobbly grin. “Yeah, we did.” 

“I...how?” Dave looks lost and a little self conscious, and Klaus knows he isn’t asking _how_ they fell in love, but _why_ (why did I love you?) 

Klaus takes a long drag from his cigarette and holds the smoke in until he can’t, letting it out slowly, staring out at the leaves being blown through the air by the wind. 

“I don’t know,” Klaus says honestly, even though it hurts, maybe more than anything ever has. 

“What do you mean you don’t-” Dave starts, sounding bewildered, but Klaus cuts him off, maybe a bit too harshly. 

“I mean I _don’t know_ ! I don’t know why you loved me, Dave, or why you used to look at me like I hung the fucking moon. You just _did_ . And it was- it was amazing, being looked at like I fucking _mattered_ , okay, like I was something special. It was- it was _everything,_ and now it’s gone, and you’re asking me _how_ , like I wouldn’t give everything I am just to make you look at me like that again.” 

Dave frowns, looking terribly sad now, and it’s so reminiscent of every other time Klaus had said something Dave didn’t like (“Actually, legally, my name is Four. Y’know, like the number”) that Klaus can’t hold back the tears anymore. 

He clenches his jaw in frustration and tips his head back to stare up at the sky, taking another puff from his cigarette before grinding it out against the windowsill and tossing it outside. 

“Klaus, I-”Dave starts, but Klaus cuts him off with a harsh bark of laughter. 

“Don’t. Just don’t.” He takes a deep breath and swipes angrily at the tears on his cheeks before swinging his leg back inside and heading towards the stairs. “It’s not your fault. I know that. I’m sorry.I just- I can’t right now, okay?” 

And then he’s striding past Dave and an eavesdropping Five who doesn’t even bother blinking away before he’s caught outside the door, and into his own bedroom, curling up underneath his comforter and hugging a pillow to his chest. 

He feels it when Ben comes in, the same way he does every time. 

“It’s not his fault,” Ben says from wherever he’s looming. Klaus doesn’t bother removing his head from his blanket burrito to look. 

“I know,” Klaus snaps irritably, voice muffled by the comforter. 

“I’m sorry.” 

Klaus swallows, squeezes his eyes shut against the burn of fresh tears. 

“I know,” he says, softer. 

“He’ll remember, someday.” Ben’s voice holds a frankly astonishing amount of confidence for someone who has known Dave for a grand total of forty-five minutes. 

“‘Someday’,” Klaus spits the word like poison. “Someday he’ll have found someone else. Someday, he’ll have settled down with some nice girl, in total denial of his preference for pretty boys, and he’ll have a nice little farm with a white picket fence and two kids and a dog. ‘Someday’, Ben, I’ll just be the crazy guy who dragged him away from everything he knew.” 

“Klaus,” Ben says firmly, closer now. “You’ve waxed poetic about this man for _months_. I don’t think you’re giving him enough credit.” His voice softens into something gentler, more understanding, and Klaus hates it, hates how it tugs at his frayed heartstrings. “And if he loves you even half as much as you love him- and from what you’ve told me, he does- he’ll remember. Because somewhere, deep down, he’ll know his life isn’t complete without you in it.” 

Ben is a lot of things. Smart, sarcastic, kind (sometimes), judgmental, caring, a total closet romantic, and a right pain in Klaus’s ass. 

A pragmatist has never been among those things (at least, not where Klaus is involved- hence Ben’s continued but misplaced faith in him). 

Klaus pokes his head out of his blanket (this has unfortunately turned into a face to face kind of conversation) and stares intently at Ben, who stares back with the ease of someone who has dealt with Klaus’s shit for far too long to be put off by any of it. 

Klaus sighs and relents, levering himself into a sitting position, and says, “That’s not how real life works, Ben.” 

“But-”

“No.” Klaus untangles from the comforter and holds up a hand ( _goodbye_ ). “Let me finish. Please.” 

Ben purses his lips but nods and comes over to settle onto the bed next to Klaus, waiting patiently as Klaus struggles to voice the words (he knows what he wants to say but fuck, it’s _hard_ ). 

“That’s not how real life works,” Klaus repeats. “I wish it would work like that. God, do I. But- Ben, Christ, you’ve been stuck with me for long enough to know that people like me, we don’t get what we want. I’m not a good person, Ben, I’m not even an _okay_ person, I’m just- I’m just a person. A person who’s spent his life getting the short end of the stick, sure, but that’s just how it _is._ He has amnesia, he isn’t just going to suddenly remember me through the power of love or whatever it is you’re hoping is going to happen. I _wish_ it would. With my whole heart, I do. But.” Klaus shrugs helplessly. “But it won’t. Because I’m me, and he’s him, and people like me don’t get to keep good things.” (And Dave is _good_ , and Klaus _was_ lucky enough to keep him, for a little while, and it leaves him aching and raw, knowing he isn’t that lucky anymore). 

“So you’re just going to give up?” 

Klaus startles violently at the new voice, and turns away from Ben’s sad bambi eyes to peer at the person in the doorway.

Five is giving him a deeply unimpressed scowl, arms crossed over his chest as he steps into the room. Ben floats over to his side to scowl at Klaus, too. 

Klaus throws his hands up in exasperation. “I don’t know what either of you expect me to do!” 

Five rolls his eyes (not even questioning the fact that Klaus has included another person in his statement, the little psycho) and says like he’s talking to a very small, very stupid child. “You made him fall in love with you _in the middle of the Vietnam War._ Do you _actually_ believe you can’t make him fall in love with you again? Here? Where you don’t have to worry about bullets or bombs or homophobic assholes?” 

“He doesn’t even know he likes men yet!” 

Five scoffs. “Of course he knows. He looked like he was ready to rip your shirt off and start praying when he first saw you. He just doesn’t know it’s okay.” 

“I- okay, so he knows,” Klaus relents. “But he doesn’t know he likes _me_ . And I get it, I do, I’m a lot, I know that, but...Jesus, he _doesn’t know me_ . Everything that happened between us, is just- it’s _gone._ Vanished, disappeared, deceased and buried six feet under kind of gone. Because to him, it didn’t happen. I’m just the psycho who made you drag him fifty years into the future.”

“To save him from certain death,” Five points out calmly. 

“You think that matters?” Klaus asks, voice high pitched and hysterical even to his own ears. Ben holds up his hands placatingly, opening his mouth like he’s going to say something (likely in Five’s defense, and that simply won’t do). 

Five’s chest puffs as he heaves a deep sigh, chin raising in defiance. “Of _course_ it matters-”

“You think,” Klaus says, fury uncurling in his chest, slow and cold and all consuming. “That, of all of Dave’s problems right now, the fact that he _almost_ died in the middle of an active warzone where people almost die all the _fucking_ time is what makes the top of the list?”

“Well, when you put it like _that_ -” Five starts defensively, and Klaus holds up a hand ( _goodbye_ ) to stop him. 

“You,” Klaus spits, taking a wobbly step forward. “You think that’s even in the top five? The top ten? He’s been stolen from his home and dropped fifty years into the future!” His voice has gone high and shrill, anger roiling through him in white-hot waves. “And, to top it all off, he’s had five different people try to convince him he’s in love with the _man_ in the purple skirt!” 

Ben frowns. “Klaus,” he says gently. “There’s nothing wrong with the skirt-”

And Five inadvertently cuts him off, practically snarling, “If Dave has a problem with the skirt-”

“Oh my god!” Klaus throws his hands in the air and then drops them to fist in his curls. “It’s not about the skirt! Christ on a cracker, the skirt isn’t the thing to focus on right now! The _problem_ is that-”

“I like the skirt,” says a timid voice from the doorway, and Klaus freezes, muscles locking into place, breath stuttering to a stop in his chest. 

Both Ben and Five go still as well before stepping to the side, revealing Dave standing in the doorway with an uncharacteristically nervous look on his face. 

“Thanks, Dave,” Klaus says, trying to ignore the way his voice wobbles. 

Dave offers up a small smile, something frightened and fragile in his eyes, and it makes Klaus’s chest ache. “You’re welcome. Can we talk?” He glances at Five. “Alone?”

“I- uh-”

“Yes,” Five says decisively. “You can.” Before his eyes roam aimlessly around the room. “Ben, you too. Let’s go.” 

Ben frowns and meets Klaus’s eyes, waiting until he nods to actually leave. Five blinks out of the room as well, and then Dave and Klaus are alone. 

“What, um, what did you want to talk about?” Klaus asks quietly, smoothing his shaking hands down the soft fabric of his skirt. 

“You,” Dave says immediately, and then frowns. “No, no, _us_. I want to talk about us. You really love me?”

Klaus swallows but nods. “More than anything, David. More than anything.” 

Even though Klaus had told him earlier, Dave still looks some concerning mixture between awestruck and discomfort. “Like- like movie love?” He asks, voice soft and vulnerable. “Were we a tragedy, Klaus? Did we have the kind of love where- where you’d die for me?” And of course that’s Dave’s only frame of reference, of course two men couldn’t have a happy ending in 1968, where they’re together and in love and don’t have to hide who they are to appease close minded assholes, but-

“No,” Klaus denies immediately, rushes on when Dave’s face falls. “I’d live for you.” 

And Dave- he goes silent and still, eyes wide and watery and meeting Klaus’s with startling intensity. Klaus can see the understanding, the awe, because somehow, despite the amnesia, he _knows_ Klaus, and he knows just how much that means to him, means to _them_.

“You...for me?” Dave breathes, taking a step closer, and Klaus offers up a pathetically lovestruck smile. 

“Yeah,” he says with a nod. “It’s you. It’s always you.” 

_It’ll always be you._

*** 

Klaus is twenty-nine when he falls in love. 

Nine months later, on a quiet summer evening, he sits tucked into Dave’s side, the pair of them leaning against the thick trunk of a palm tree. 

It’s rare, getting calm moments like these, the only sounds breaking the silence being those of the jungle life and the soft breeze rustling through the leaves- no gunfire, no bombs, no screaming. Moments like these, rare as they may be, it seems as though everyone from either side has finally taken a moment to close their eyes and _breathe_. 

Klaus and Dave are supposed to be on night watch, but there’s nothing happening _to_ watch for, so they bask in each other’s company instead. 

“You know,” Klaus says, idly tracing patterns on Dave’s upturned palm. “It’s legal for same-sex partners to get married, back in my time.” 

Dave chokes on air, and then dissolves into a fit of coughing so intense, Klaus actually pulls away from his boyfriends warm side to pat him strongly on the back. 

“Okay?” Klaus asks, bemused. 

“Yeah,” Dave says hoarsely, and then chuckles to himself, shaking his head. “Yes, I’m fine. Took me by surprise, that’s all. It’s really legal?” 

“Oh yeah, baby,” Klaus beams and leans in for a kiss. “Not everyone is happy about it, but it is.” 

“Wow.” Dave smiles, squeezing Klaus’s hand. “Sounds like things get better for...people like us, then. Yeah?” 

Klaus smiles, and then shifts forward onto his knees, turning to face Dave fully. 

“A lot better,” Klaus murmurs absently, curling his fingers around the metal band in his pocket. “If we could…” His heart hammers in his chest, palms suddenly sweaty, but he pushes through. “Would you want to?” 

Dave’s eyes went wide, before he let out a startled laugh. 

“Klaus Hargreeves, are you asking me to marry you?” 

Klaus scoffs. “Absolutely not. Me? You would _know_ if I was asking you to marry me. There would be much more fanfare.” He pauses, hedges, “But would you?” 

Dave laughs again, warm and happy, and tugs Klaus close once more. 

“Ask me again,” Dave says, pressing his lips into Klaus’s hair.“When we get out of here and I can buy you a ring when I say yes.” 

Klaus tucks his face into the crook of Dave’s neck with a smile as happy tears burn in his eyes. 

“You better be prepared for _fanfare_ and _drama_ , then. It’s really going to be quite moving.” 

“Darlin’, I wouldn’t expect anything less.” 

***

Five is scowling around the room, a mug held tightly in his hand. 

If it weren’t for Dolores tucked into his other side, Klaus has no doubt there would be _violence,_ the type that is completely disproportionate to the crime. 

“Who’s responsible for this?” Five snarls, clutching the mug so tightly Klaus is honestly surprised it hasn’t broken. 

“All of us,” Luther says immediately. 

Klaus snorts. “Don’t drag me into this, _I_ said it would be a mistake.” 

Dave rolls his eyes and wraps his arms around Klaus’s waist from behind, resting his chin on Klaus’s shoulder.

“Don’t lie, darlin’,” he says, ignoring Klaus’s gasp of outrage. “I’m pretty sure this was your idea, actually.” 

“Betrayal!” Klaus bemoans, swooning dramatically back into Dave’s arms. “By my own lover! Di, if you’re looking for your knife, Dave has lodged it in my _back_.” 

Diego rolls his eyes. “Nope,” he says with a shit eating grin. “All knives accounted for.” 

“ _Boys_ ,” Allison snaps. “This is an _intervention._ We can’t have one if you keep fighting.” 

“We’re just worried,” Ben says placatingly, glowing the same faint blue as Klaus’s hands and widening his eyes in a frankly _effortless_ puppy dog look that Klaus’s siblings haven’t quite managed to gain immunity to yet (it lost all effect on Klaus _years_ ago). 

Five softens slightly, before seeming to remember why he was mad in the first place and making direct and prolonged eye contact with each of his six siblings as he slowly pours out the mug of water. No one says a word as they listen to the _splat_ it makes as it hits the carpet. 

“I asked for _coffee_ ,” Five hisses, bristling like a wet cat. 

“And we all agreed that you’ve been drinking way too much caffeine for someone your age,” Luther says with a worried frown. 

Klaus groans and face palms. 

“Luther!” Vanya admonishes, glancing between Luther and Five with wide eyes. 

“Great,” Allison says with a defeated sigh, stepping back and out of range. 

“Now you’ve done it,” Diego grumbles, plopping himself down onto the couch to watch their attempts unravel with a look of unmitigated glee in his eyes. 

“What?” Luther defends, and Ben smacks at his arm. 

“Play back what you just said, _slowly_ ,” he instructs. 

They all watch in silence as Luther visibly goes through what he just said, before paling. “Oh,” he says quietly. And then, much more fearfully, “ _Oh._ ” 

“ _What_ did you just say?” Five asks, voice calm. 

“Oh no,” Dave murmurs quietly, and Klaus giggles ecstatically. 

“Oh, _yes,_ ” he crows. 

“Luther,” Allison says, eyes on Five. 

“Yes, Allison?” Luther’s voice wobbles. 

“Run.” 

Luther runs. 

Five eyes his retreating form speculatively before his eyes settle on the umbrella sitting innocently by the door. 

There’s a soft _fwmph_ and a flash of blue, followed by a heavy _thump_ and Luther’s shriek. 

The sound of Klaus’s siblings laughter mingles with his own, and he closes his eyes and basks in it, leaning into Dave’s warmth. 

(They’ve gone back to their old tradition, but this time it’s only weekly- Griddy’s, it turns out, is a _really_ good place for weekly family therapy sessions. They can’t yell at each other without causing a scene, and once they’re all exhausted from the emotional turmoil of it all, they can stuff their faces with fried, sugary goodness.) 

(Klaus looks around at the smiling faces of his siblings, at Ben’s softly glowing form, at Five blinking back into the room with his umbrella, at Dave’s lovestruck eyes, and thinks that maybe, just maybe, they’re going to be okay.) 

***

Six months later, Klaus asks again. 

Dave laughs, and cries, and then takes him out to find a ring. 

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Look. The ending kind of fell apart. I apologize for that. I’ve been trying to figure out how to fix it for a while, and I just can’t. So. Here you go! 
> 
> As for Dave’s amnesia...I don’t know. I don’t know if he ended up remembering, or if Klaus made him fall in love with him again. You can choose!  
> I can tell you that he does remember that he was serving in the war- he just doesn’t remember A Shau specifically, as that’s around when his memories were scrambled. Why? We’ll chock it up to time travel.  
> Thank you for reading, and don’t hesitate to ask any questions if you have them!


End file.
